Philosophy and the science of human nature lecture 1 - 13 transcript PDF

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Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature Lecture 1 - 13 Transcript...

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Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature Lecture 1 - Introduction [January 11, 2011] Chapter 1. Introduction and Course Overview [00:00:00] Professor Tamar Gendler: So, welcome to Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature. It's nice see so many of you here today. I hope to see more of you here again on Thursday. And my goal today is to try to give you a sense of what kind of course this is going to be so that you can make an informed decision about whether this is a course that you actually want to enroll in for credit. With that aim in mind, there are three things I want to do in today's lecture. In the first part of the lecture, I'm just going to give you a very broad overview of what kind of course this is, and to say a few words about what my goals are for the course. In the bulk of the lecture, what I'm going to do is to run through three examples of the kinds of topics that we're going to be addressing this semester, so that you have a sense of what kind of material we're going to be talking about. And in the final section of the course, I'll say a few things about what it is that makes this course distinctive, and a few things about the course's requirements. So the course has this perplexing cross-listed title. It's called Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature, and it's listed both in Philosophy and in Cognitive Science, and it's a course for which you can get credit in the Psychology major. So what kind of course is this? Well, in some ways, this is a course like Directed Studies Philosophy or Philosophy 125-126. That is, we're going to be reading works by Plato, by Aristotle, by Epictetus, by Boethius, by Hobbes, by Hume, and by Mill--all major philosophers from the Western philosophical tradition. We're going to be reading them roughly historically, with an attempt to get at some of the kinds of questions that one would get at in a traditional philosophy course. In addition, you'll get some of the material that you would get in an ethics course. So one of the topics that we'll cover in Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature are the three main ethical theories in the Western philosophical tradition. We'll talk about utilitarianism, we'll talk about deontology, and we'll talk about virtue ethics, and we'll talk about how those relate to one another. You'll also get some of the materials that you would get if you took an introduction to political philosophy course. We'll very briefly look at the work of Thomas Hobbes on the legitimacy of the state, and then we'll read and think about the debate between John Rawls and Robert Nozick about how much weight should be given to the relative values of equality on one hand and liberty on the other. So in that regard, this is, in some ways, a standard philosophy course in the moral and political tradition. It's not a course in metaphysics; it's not a course in epistemology; it's not a course where we're going to be talking about issues like free will or the mind-body problem, all of which could legitimately fall under the topic of philosophy of human nature. But what's distinctive about this course is that in addition to the contributions that are made by the philosophical side of the equation, we're also going to be drawing from a number of other disciplines. So one of the main themes of the course will be to think about how the questions raised by the traditional philosophers that I've mentioned already are picked up in the contemporary cognitive science tradition. In particular, how they're picked up by what I see as one of the main strands in contemporary cognitive science, the strand that looks at the relation between human beings as rational creatures, capable of a certain kind of calculated and reflective understanding of themselves and their place in the world, and, on the other hand, human beings as evolved animals who are subject to forces that lie beyond their rational control. In light of that recognition that human beings are capable of being affected in multiple ways, we'll look at a number of writings from psychology. So we'll read some Freud; we'll have a discussion of cognitive behavioral therapy; we'll talk about post-traumatic stress disorder; we'll have discussion of happiness, using a wonderful book written by a Yale

alumnus, Jonathan Haidt. We'll look at some work on self-regulation, on love and friendship, and we'll also look at empirical work on topics like moral reasoning and punishment, and social psychological work on situations and attitudes. So a lot of the material that we'll address in this course will come from psychology. But some of it will also come from the tradition of political science. So in the course of discussing the legitimacy of the state, we'll introduce ourselves to the notion of the prisoners' dilemma. We'll talk about the tragedy of the commons, and in the closing section of the course, we'll talk about the role of rhetoric and argument in political persuasion. We'll also draw from the field of behavioral economics. One of the reading assignments is to listen to Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize speech, accepting the Nobel Price on behalf of himself and his collaborator, Amos Tversky, for the extraordinary work they did founding behavioral economics. But we'll also look at some additional work in the dual processing tradition, and we have some excerpts from Dan Ariely's delightful book, public book on behavioral economics. Finally, we'll even draw a little bit from literature. We're going to read a short excerpt from the Iliad; we're going to read a short story by Ursula LeGuin; and in the second to last lecture of the course, we'll look at what Plato has to say about the role of literature and artistic representation in affecting human self-understanding. So what I'm going to try to do in the course is to bring together these eight fields in a way that provides a coherent story about what kind of things human beings are, and how we can learn about what kind of things human beings are from these various perspectives. In slogan form, the structure of the course is dead guy on Tuesday, cog sci on Thursday. Except not all the philosophers we're reading are dead. And not all of them are guys. And not all the other fields are cog sci. And in fact, most things are going to be covered together on Tuesday and Thursday. And there are going to be sections. But other than that, the slogan. So that's an overview of the kinds of disciplines that contribute to the course. Let me say a bit about the specific topics that I hope to address in the course of the semester. So the first overarching topic, and I roughly organized the syllabus under these three topics, but in some way, each of them will keep re-emerging throughout the semester. The first topic is the topic of happiness and flourishing. What does the ancient Western philosophical tradition say about what it takes for human beings to thrive in a meaningful sense, and how does that connect to work that's been done more recently in various literary and scientific traditions about what it is that enables human beings to flourish? What is it about human nature that can give us some clue about what kind of thing authentic happiness might be? That's the first set of questions that we'll address. It turns out that the ancient philosophers' answer to that question is that human beings thrive when their souls are wellordered, to use the ancient metaphor. When the parts of their souls that might pull in different directions are in a certain kind of harmony; and the ancient picture is that when that happens, human beings behave in a moral way. And so the second part of the course will look at both what it feels like from the inside to behave in ways that are conventionally considered moral, and from a higher level, what it is that we mean when we say that an act is moral or immoral. So as I mentioned, we'll look at the three main Western philosophical conceptions of morality, and we'll also look at some interesting related questions. Like, why is punishment justified when it is? And is the justification for punishment psychological or ethical? And in the final unit of the course, we'll move beyond the individual into society as a whole, and ask some questions about what it is that makes political structures legitimate, and how it is that state or civic institutions ought to be organized in order to allow human beings to flourish. So those are the three main topics that we'll be addressing, and as you can see, on the syllabus that I've handed out, there

are highlighted examples of a few of those particular topics that we're addressing on page one of the syllabus, and a much more detailed set of questions on pages three and four. But in addition to being about the content of these questions, this is also a course that's going to encourage you to think about the methodology of each of the disciplines from which we're drawing. So it's my goal to introduce you to a number of traditional philosophical discussions of the human being, but it's also my goal to get you to think about what these philosophical discussions have in common, and why it is that thinking about things in the way that philosophy thinks about things can be valuable for answering questions that we care about. And we'll do something very similar with respect to the other disciplines. We'll look at the literature from psychology and behavioral economics and political science and literature, and we'll ask: what is it about this distinctive approach to answering these questions that provides us with a complementary insight on the issues that the philosophers have raised? And finally, I'm going to ask you to think not only in the context of this class, but in the context of the other classes you're taking about the ways in which the material to which you're being exposed sheds light through multiple disciplinary perspectives on the set of questions that we're concerned with. Chapter 2. First Example of Course Topics: the Ring of Gyges [00:11:30] So that's the opening segment of the lecture. That what I had called the "overview and course topics" section of the class. And what I want to do now is to give you three examples of the kinds of topics that we'll be addressing this semester. So the first example I'm going to give is actually drawn from the readings that we'll be doing for Thursday. And it's a story from Plato's Republic called the story of the ring of Gyges. I'll give you a little bit more background on Thursday about where this story fits in the context of the book from which it's drawn, but for now, all you need to know is that there's a character named Glaucon who's actually one of the brothers of Plato, the author of this dialogue. And Glaucon is in conversation with the great ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, and he's trying to convince Socrates that when people act morally, the only reason they do it is because they can't get away with it. So even if you've shopped only for today, you'll have a chance to hear some Plato. So I'm going to read aloud to you these numbers on the right. I'll explain to you next class, they're called Stephanus numbers. They enable you, whichever translation of Plato you're using to find the same passage. And what I'm reading to you from is from Stephanus pages 359 to 360. So: "There was once a shepherd named Gyges in the service of the ruler of Lydia. There was a giant thunderstorm, and an earthquake broke open the ground and created a chasm at the place where he was tending his sheep. Seeing this, he was filled with amazement and went down into it. And there he saw a hollow bronze horse. There were window-like openings in it, and peeking in, he saw a corpse wearing nothing but a gold ring on his finger. So he took the ring and came out of the chasm." "He wore the ring at his usual monthly meeting that reported to the king on the state of the flocks. And as he was sitting among the others, he happened to turn the setting of the ring towards himself, to the inside of the hand. And when he did this, he became invisible to those sitting near him, and they went on talking as if he had gone. He wondered about this, and fingering the ring, he turned the setting outwards again, and became visible. So he experimented with the ring to test whether it indeed had this power, and it did. If he turned the setting inward, he became invisible, and if he turned it outward, he became visible again." "When he realized this, he arranged to become one of the messengers sent to report to the king. And when he arrived there, he seduced the king's wife, with her help, attacked and killed the king, and took over the kingdom." So that's the story of the ring of Gyges. Now why is it that Glaucon tells that story? Glaucon tells that story with the

expectation that you, upon hearing this, will think that you would act as Gyges did, if you had the opportunity to get away with crime without being caught. Glaucon's conclusion from this story is that those who practice justice, those who act in conformity with the moral code of their society, do so because they lack the power to do injustice. They act in that way because they fear the punishment of society. They don't act in that way because it's in any way valuable to them. And the reading that we're going to do for this Thursday's class includes [both] the text that surrounds the story that I just told you. So the setup wherein Glaucon raises the challenge of which [this] is supposed to be an example, and the conversation between Glaucon and Socrates that follows the posing of the challenge through this story. And in addition, we're going to read some empirical psychological work on the question of what people do when they think they are unobserved. So we're going to ask the question whether, as a matter of fact, people would, and whether, as a matter of fact, people should behave as Gyges did. That's the first example of the kind of topic we're going to address in the course. Chapter 3. Second Example of Course Topics: Trolley problems [00:16:29] A second set of topics that we'll address in the course will take off from a particular philosophical example that has become quite popular in contemporary discussions of morality, but which is actually traceable, about 40 years old, to some writings by Philippa Foot, and the philosopher Judith Thomson. And the case, with which I suspect some of you are familiar, involves a trolley, which is hurtling down the track in the direction of five people, and if the trolley is not turned, it will hit this group of five. Now, the question that philosophers like to pose is the following. Suppose that there were a switch, which you could use that would divert the trolley so that instead of hitting the five people, it would go down a branch track and hit one. When we have our course clickers, we'll be able to do this scientifically. For now, I just want a show of hands. How many people think it is either morally permitted or morally required, that is, either permitted or required, not forbidden, to switch the trolley in such a way that it hits the one person, rather than the five? How many think it's either permitted or required to switch the trolley so that one person dies rather than five? [pause] OK. And how many of you think it's morally forbidden to turn the trolley so that it kills one person rather than five? How many of you think it's morally forbidden, prohibited? [pause] OK. So as I said, we don't have the clickers, but a vast majority of the class believes that it's either permitted or required to divert the trolley. Now, suppose we had a slightly different situation. Instead of the one person being on the tracks, there is, rather, a bridge that rests over the trolley tracks. And atop the bridge, a large gentleman of ample girth such that were you to dislodge him from his present location using the same switch that you used in the last case, he would be sufficiently weighty to prevent the trolley from hitting the five. How many of you think it is morally required or morally permitted to push the fat man off the bridge to prevent the trolley from hitting the five? [pause] And how many of you think it is morally prohibited? Hands up again? [pause] All right. We have a very, very different spread this time. Now suppose we end up at the hospital, and the five who were lying on the track when the trolley didn't hit them are terribly injured in such a way that one needs a heart, one needs a lung, one needs a leg, one needs an arm, one needs an eye. And in walks a healthy gentleman with exactly the organs required to save the five. How many of you think it is morally required or morally permitted to cut up the one to save the five? [pause] I won't sit with you in the hospital waiting room. That was three hands. How many of you think it is morally prohibited? [pause] All right. Suppose there is a bear running towards you. You're standing in line of people, and there's a bear running towards you. How many of you think it's morally permitted to move out of the bear's way if the bear is running towards you? [pause] OK. Now when that happens, the bear's going to eat the guy who is right behind you. OK. Case number two: Suppose there's a bear running towards you. How many of you think it's morally permitted to reach behind you, and take that guy and put him in front of you to shield you from the bear? [pause] Very different distribution of hands.

OK. What's going on here? In the original switch case where we turn the trolley, one person's going to die if we turn the trolley, and five are going to live. In the push the fat man case, if we push the fat man, one person's going to die, and five people are going to live. In the patient in the hospital case, we bring him into the hospital and cut him up. One person's going to die, and five people are going to live. In the bear case, when you duck, and he gets the guy behind you, the guy behind you dies, and you live. In the bear case, where you take the guy behind you, put him in front of you, and use him as a shield, the guy behind you dies and you live. So the second set of topics that I want to let you know we'll be talking about is the following: What is it that explains the differences in our reactions to these cases? Is there genuinely a morally relevant difference between diverting the trolley so that it kills the one rather than the five, and pushing the fat man, so the trolley kills the one rather than the five? Or is the difference in our reaction to those two cases merely psychological? Is there really a moral difference between ducking in such a way that a harm that was heading towards you hit somebody else instead, and shields you, so that a harm that is heading towards you is visited upon someone else instead? What is it that explains the differences in our reactions in these cases? What moral implications does that have, and what psychological implications does that have? So that's the second set of examples that I want to give you, a topic that we'll be addressing. Chapter 4. Third Example of Course Topics: Procrastination [00:23:07] Third set of examples. I imagine some of you are familiar with the following situation. You go to the library intending sincerely to read the Plato that has been assigned to you for the next lecture, and you find yourself, instead, answering emails. Or you set for yourself a dietary regimen, according to which you will eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables, and instead you find yourself tempted by cake. Or you commit yourself to saving up money for some sort of long-term goal, and instead, find yourself distracted by the prospects of March break in Jamaica with your roommate, or an iPod touch, or a new PlayStation 2 device that you can use to distract yourself from your reading. So what is it about human beings that we can form these sorts of plans, and then not act on them? And what is it that we can do to make ourselves stick to commitments that we've made in moments of reflection? So the reading that I assigned to you for today is a very, very brief chapter from Dan Ariely's popular book. It's a chapter on procrastination. And in it, he describes a number of strategies that we can use to help ourselves stick to longterm commitments. So, for example, one of the things that people do if they want to get themselves to read is that they go to the libr...